To V. A. Tikhonov, 14 September 1891. Moscow.

Written 14 September 1891 from Moscow to Vladimir Alexeyevich Tikhonov (1857–1914), the playwright, prose writer, and editor with whom Chekhov carried on a long, jocular theatrical-world correspondence. At this date Chekhov was deep in the writing of "Ostrov Sakhalin" (Sakhalin Island), his nonfiction account of the penal colony he had traveled to and investigated the previous year, and pressed for money after the expense of his spring 1891 trip to Western Europe with Suvorin.

Chekhov promises Tikhonov a story but says he cannot yet name it, comparing the difficulty to guessing the color of an unhatched chick, and thanks him for an invitation. He congratulates Tikhonov on a second child and on his new editorship, offering a brief editorial "testament" – read everything submitted, do not distrust newcomers, run short natural-science pieces, and keep out charades and critical articles. He reports being buried in work on his Sakhalin book, joking that finishing it feels as distant as universal chastity on the "recipe" of Tolstoy’s Pozdnyshev, and that his trip abroad has left him without money despite a full summer and autumn of work. He asks after Tikhonov’s "dramatic affairs" and his fame, sends good wishes to him and his children, notes he will not reach Petersburg before December, and closes by asking Tikhonov to send him an issue of the journal "Sever" so he can get acquainted with it.